


Loyal

by amandaterasu



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pre-Patch Shadowlands, Unrequited Love, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27497257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandaterasu/pseuds/amandaterasu
Summary: As Nathanos awaits the inevitable in Eastern Plaguelands, a good friend comes to call.---I'm having some feelings about my Banshee Loyalist character with regards to the events of the Pre-Patch. So you all can meet Vedero, one of my rogues.
Relationships: Nathanos Blightcaller & Original Female Character(s), Nathanos Blightcaller/Original Female Character(s), Nathanos Blightcaller/Sylvanas Windrunner
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	Loyal

The sound of footsteps in broken glass pulled Nathanos from his thoughts by the soot-blackened hearth, it's last fire snuffed out long ago. "Come to kill me at last?" he mocked, wondering which of Azeroth's champions had found him first.

"No," a far more familiar voice said, rough from disuse. "I came to get you _out."_

"Vedero." He said, both shocked and confused as he turned to face the Sin'dorei. If he was the Dark Lady's right hand, the woman before him now could almost certainly be called her left. "What are you doing here?"

She began packing his meager possessions. "I just told you, I'm getting you out. They - the other champions - they're on their way to kill you."

"That's the -" He frowned. "Do you have _orders_ to do this?"

Shaking her head made the tips of her ears sway as she carefully strapped the bundle together. "In the absence of orders I can only do what I assume would be her will."

He chewed his lip, deciding how much truth to tell her of what was to come. He had never doubted Vedero's loyalty to the cause, not through all the years he'd known her. But Sylvanas had her reasons for keeping things to herself - reasons he did not _know,_ but knew better than to question. "Aren't you supposed to be a proud hero of the Horde? What would that do for your cover if you were caught here, attempting to save my life? And where, _exactly_ do you even think we would go that they would not pursue?"

Her mulish expression made him laugh, until he realized she had no answer. Vedero _always_ had an answer. If not a clear one, then a lead, a plan - some intuition granted by Azeroth to her champion. It was a large part of why the Dark Lady trusted her so: her Left Hand did not require micromanagement like other champions - she would simply be given a goal, and free reign to make it happen. It always did.

But if Vedero was here, trying to save him, with no plan beyond packing his things and … ? Then she was not thinking with her brain but with her -

Nathanos pursed his lips and looked outside towards the rising moon. "Why are you still loyal to her? You could walk away now. They would be none the wiser."

"I've always been stubborn. My mother said it would be the death of me." She patted herself down, taking quick inventory of her daggers and poisons. "For now we can go to ground. There's some madness up in Icecrown and -"

"I know," he said. "It's part of her plan. Just like my second death, here."

Vedero snorted. "I highly doubt she would want you to face True Death. You are _her_ champion." 

"Yes, and that means I am happy to die in her service, as I did before." The moon was high enough to peek in through the windowframe now, and it caught the spy's dark hair, turning it near-blue with its glow. 

"Your death isn't necessary." The girl said, digging her heels in. She was smarter than this; he _knew_ she was. "It's one thing to die while accomplishing her goals. It is another to just sit here and let them come kill you."

"It is the plan -"

"Then it's a stupid plan!" Vedero slammed her fist into the warped wooden table she'd left the bundle on. 

"Do you question the Dark Lady?" He tried to be menacing, but it failed with her, like always.

"No." The mulishness again. "I do not understand what advantage can be gained that would _possibly_ be worth losing -" She tightened her jaw against whatever she had been about to say, and changed tacks. "You are a valuable asset. It is foolishness to waste your life without a clear direction."

"And I have received such direction," he said. "Even if you have not."

"Do you really expect me to stand here and watch them kill you?"

"I expect you to _help_ them kill me." She recoiled from his words as if he had slapped her.

Nathanos stepped away from the hearth and approached one of his last allies. "Vedero," he said again, placing his hand on her shoulder. He knew the answer to the question he was about to ask, had known it for years. "Why are you loyal to Sylvanas?"

She looked up at him with the same doleful eyes she had the last time they had been this close - when one of Greymane's claws had caught her across the stomach in Stormheim and he'd carried her back to the apothecaries. "I'm not."

"Then why do you care? You have nothing to gain, and everything to lose." 

"You're not _that_ oblivious."

He chuckled. "No, but you know that I don't…" He sighed, weighing the damage his next words might cause. The Dark Lady needed Vedero to stay loyal. Was it wise of him to drag this truth - that the rogue had so carefully kept hidden - out of the shadows to be acknowledged? 

In the end he decided it didn't matter. Vedero was necessary to the next part of the plan. She needed to survive, to go to the Shadowlands with the Horde vanguard. And _he_ needed to die so that he could help their lady in that place beyond the Veil of Death. The only way to be sure she would not interfere would be to sever this now. "You know that I do not reciprocate your feelings."

"Of course not," she scoffed. "That has been abundantly clear for ages - even before you died the first time. I never asked you to."

"So, what, you just…" he rubbed his face wish his hand, tracing the outline of his goatee. "You just decided to follow her because I do?"

"Yes." 

"You have a love-affair with tragedy, Vedero."

"Better this than the alternative," she said, and they both laughed before she continued. "Let me save you, this once."

Nathanos shook his head, but pressed his lips to her forehead. "No. It is the Dark Lady's plan that I die. I cannot give you many details, but I can tell you this - the 'madness in Icecrown' as you put it? She has shattered the barrier between life and death. By killing me here they will send me straight to her side, where I can continue to serve. Just as she and I need _you_ to serve, for all appearances a loyal champion of the Horde. So please," he whispered, letting his fingers trail down her arm to her hip, and drawing free one of the wicked looking daggers she kept close, coated in poison. "Help them. Give them no reason to question which side you are on, until Sylvanas and I send for you again." He placed the dagger in her hands. 

"You are almost as cruel as she is," Vedero said. "How am I supposed to pretend to be fine with your final death?"

Patting her arm, he stepped away and turned back to the empty fireplace. "I think in the days to come you will find death is not so final as it once was. But, I give you my word, upon the Dark Lady herself - you will see me again."

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this, feel free to follow me on Twitter: [@amandaterasu](https://www.twitter.com/amandaterasu)!


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